continued...
Wow! That's a first...overloaded the script and had to break this post into 2 parts. Do I win an award or anything Greenie???
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Carrie
- Isn't it time that we consider dropping the 800x600 rule? We're building sites for a small minority of surfers. Most sponsors now offer videos that are bigger than 800x600 and pics are usually 1024 on the SHORT side, yet we're supposed to convince a surfer they can get this high resolution stuff at the sponsor when our sites are only 750 pixels wide? Seriously, it's like having a salesman trying to sell you a Cadillac but he'll only give you a test drive in an Escort. I can't think of any business that would restrict/punish 80+% of their customers and limit the business' own opportunities for less than 20% of the people that come through the door.
For those LL owners who say "I surf at 800x600"... please bump your resolution up to 1024x768 and surf around the sites on your LL for an hour, and see how ridiculously TINY the sites look. That's how most surfers are seeing the sites on your LL. It makes the sites, and your LL, look really *dated*. Like they're stuck in 1999 and not keeping up with technology.
It's also a bit contradictory when the minimum pixels on the long side of a photo have gone from 450 to 600+, which admits that there's a consensus (by number of LL rules increasing their photo size requirements) that surfers' resolutions have gotten bigger, yet we're still building sites at the same size we were when the minimum width/length of the long side of a photo was 450 pixels.
For a compromise, you could try adding a "high resolution" section where the sites are all built for at least a 1024 width resolution. Test it out for a while, see how much traffic it gets, how many of your normal bookmarkers go into that section. It won't hurt anything, it'll give you more pages to advertise on, and you'll get to really see with your own traffic how many people *want* to look at sites at that resolution rather than just assuming something based on what your AWStats "browser" section tells you. Or hell, you could put up a poll or send out an email to your mailing list asking your surfers if they'd like to see sites built for wider screens. It never hurts to try, or to ask.
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Once again, discussed many many times...even very recently as I recall. The consensus is yes, the time does indeed draw near. I'm going through a complete redesign at the moment and really had to decide if I wanted to stay at 800 wide (which I did for now). See, even if only 15% of surfers are still at 800 wide...do you really want to alienate 15% of your customers? Isn't it better to build for the largest customer base possible? Those 1024 wide surfers can still easily see the site, so they're not getting cranky. But, if you widen out the sites...you are indeed taking the risk of making those 800 wide surfers cranky when they have to side scroll. The time is coming though, and I'd suspect we'll be there within the next 12 to 18 months.
Whew...think I may have worn out the 'QUOTE' feature
Look Carrie, it's obvious you put a lot of time and thought into your suggestions...so i tried to respond to them individually. But, something you missed is that each of the link sites is owned by an individual person. Yes, we do try to keep some consistency as a group with the major issues. But, there are always going to be some nuances to each link site...since to some degree, those sites are a direct result of the values, morals (yes, porn slingers have morals) and needs of that specific site owner
